Would it actually have killed them to give us some screenshots, given that it's to be released in only 3 weeks time?

$49 seems like quite a bit, but again ... it's not real money.

I pre-ordered it from RightStuf Anime in November for $32. Lord knows if that order is still in, because RightStuf lets you know jack through e-mail about pre-order delays.

Because it's probably not any or much different from the UK DVD transfer, just an NTSC conversion; there is no mention of remastering afterall. Other than that, "Star Fleet" is probably nothing to most people following Discotek's usual catalogue so there's probably little demand to hear about it from them. Then there's people who are just glad the show's finally getting a US release. "Star Fleet" is more likely to be loved by Gerry Anderson fans than today's anime fans, even if it was made by Go Nagai; the man the giant robot genre of anime owes a lot to.

I have a few Discotek DVD's myself, primarily some "Lupin III" movies. They have gone above and beyond on many of their stuff, prime example is Lupin's "Mystery of Mamo" which has 4 different English dubs done over a span of 25 years (one of which includes Captain Carter's voice actor as Goemon, and Orion's voice actor as Zenigata) and their DVD includes all of them. But as Enoki Films has pretty much shown they have a loose definition of "remastering" as shown by the 2013 Japanese set, I wouldn't expect miracles from the masters they give to Discotek.

I just got Discotek's release today. And it's really as I expected; the quality is about the same as the UK DVD. There are a couple differences though;

-The intro and end credits are grittier looking. I think the UK DVD may have actually touched the intro and end up. It was always clear to me though that they copy/pasted the same version of the intro/end to every episode on the UK DVD. Here they look unaltered, or more like how they looked on the "Space Quest for F-01" credits did on the Japanese DVD.
-The commerical intermission frames with the "Star Fleet" logo are intact.

Other than that, Discotek's masters are pretty much indistinguishable from the UK DVD apart from being NTSC, with the same fuzziness, color grading problems and brief audio cutouts. What I am grateful for is that the editors didn't slow the footage down to 24fps, which was my biggest fear. It's interlaced to 30fps which is proper procedure. When things get slowed or sped up like that, that makes it about unwatchable for me, with few exceptions.

The menus are nice, but nothing to write home about compared to the UK release. There are no extras except for the "Making of" Special on the last disc. They should've at least included the Brian May music video. Then again, there's probably some royalties to be paid in including that...

Am I disappointed? No, I'm really quite happy that we finally got a release at all. It's been 8 years since the UK got it, so it's about bloody time. I've never found these transfers at all unwatchable. They're just subpar.

So, if it's not already clear, the French DVD is still the best quality out there. With that said, the remastering project goes on....

Last edited by Bladez636 on Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh well, not quite what we hoped but that menu looks great to me. Thanks for uploading the screenshots,

Actually, I like how they seem to gain inspiration from X-Bomber the Game's interfaces for the covers and menus of various discs and so on that are produced now; the whole yellow on dark blue thing.
I think there was one that went as far as matching their typeface to the bankgothic that X-Bomber the Game uses.

This whole thing amazes me though,
The series is Japanese. They love Blu-rays. Sony invented it.
They have the masters on 35mm, (so we think).
Why are we still mucking about with DVD at all? Where is the Blu-ray release?

Oh well, not quite what we hoped but that menu looks great to me. Thanks for uploading the screenshots,

Actually, I like how they seem to gain inspiration from X-Bomber the Game's interfaces for the covers and menus of various discs and so on that are produced now; the whole yellow on dark blue thing.
I think there was one that went as far as matching their typeface to the bankgothic that X-Bomber the Game uses.

This whole thing amazes me though,
The series is Japanese. They love Blu-rays. Sony invented it.
They have the masters on 35mm, (so we think).
Why are we still mucking about with DVD at all? Where is the Blu-ray release?

Can't really have a good blu-ray when the transfers are mediocre.
I think it was you who once speculated after the Japanese "Remaster" came out in 2013 that the original mastertapes were destroyed in the same fire that destroyed the puppets and sets, thus why there's only these broadcast analogue tapes. And I agree, it seems just as likely an explanation, but doesn't exactly explain why they couldn't clean them up. The Japanese DVD might be a straight transfer of the Laserdisc prints. I haven't a clue because I don't have the laserdiscs.
There's also the fact that this show isn't loved in Japan as much as in the UK. And even in the UK it's still a rather underground thing it seems. The Japanese don't think much of it and probably feel a blu-ray isn't worth the effort/cost of doing a full remaster